Five of Five

I have a friend, lets call her 'Colleen'. She works as a customer service rep in a 50 person call center located in Southwestern Connecticut. Yesterday she was asked to help train a new employee which meant she didn't have to answer calls, just train the new guy on the intricacies of their system.

So throughout the day she went over the daily rules and regulations with him. They finished up around five minutes to five. Being his first day on the job, his head was swimming with tons of new information, so she let him go home.

Well, a moment later Colleen's supervisor approached with a stern look on her face. Colleen was puzzled. What was this about? she thought.

"Where's the new trainee at?" said the supervisor.

"I let him go home", responded Colleen.

"Go Home? But its not five o'clock yet. You shouldn't have done that. Other people get mad when they see someone leave early."

Colleen nodded in submission.

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So when it comes to following the rules, when is being a stickler going overboard? Sounds like her boss was being petty and unnecessarily strict if you ask me. I mean how much more "productivity" could they have squeezed out of this new trainee with five minutes left in the day? In an age where finding competent workers is hard enough (especially in Conn.) why don't companies act like they want people to work for them? Sometimes I wonder...

SIDE NOTE: You also might be interested in knowing that Colleen doesn't even have email or voicemail. In fact none of the CSR's do. Talk about being locked in a room!